Monday, June 18, 2012

Possibilities

The weekend before last I drove my three youngest to Hendersonville, N.C., where my dad lives so they could go to camp. My dad feels it was a valuable experience he had and so he sent me and my sister to camp as well as the grand-kids. This year my sister Cathron's kids are going to camp with my kids, she stayed the week with my dad and then took my kids home with her to Indiana until July 7th when she is coming to Florida. I came home after a few days in N.C. because Stef was supposed to be moved from Shands Jacksonville to Shands Gainsville and we didn't know how soon they would do surgery.

Between going to a funeral last week and visiting Stef at the hospital in Gainsville I haven't felt a wide expanse of free time that one would generally feel if three of their four children weren't at home. I made a list of possible projects I should work on over the next couple of weeks...so far nothing has been checked off.

That funeral really put me in a funk.

I'm sure the Holland family is feeling it way more than I am but I guess I'm just surprised how it has affected me.
I didn't even really know her.
A couple of years ago we were in a small group with her and her husband, then the next year when small groups changed we were in one with her daughter and her husband but that's been over two years ago since then.
Sigh.
The week before taking the kids to camp/the last week of school, I spent four out of the five days hanging with Stef at the hospital here in Jacksonville. We had a couple of good talks about what salvation means to her and I helped her fill out her living will. She initiated the conversations. She told me she was scared and it all went from there.
Sigh.
She's asked for a chaplain every day since going to Gainsville and one hasn't come by yet. I've got the name and number of a pastor that might be able to go by and see her before her surgery tomorrow.
The surgeons are giving her very good odds of coming through the surgery but the reality of how weak her heart and lungs are do not lend itself to confident expectations.

I didn't go over yesterday and I won't go over there today, all the family has arrived back....they came 10 days ago when the last surgery was scheduled but went home when the surgery was then cancelled in pre-op because the surgeon wanted someone with congenital heart defect experience to operate.

I'll go over tomorrow after I do my morning run.
I may be signing up to do a marathon in December.
Craig has been talking about doing one and then a bunch of gals from church just signed up for one and that has kinda motivated me to think of it as a possibility.

Remember singing that song when you were a kid...I am a promiseI am a possibilityI am a promise with a capital "P"I am a great big bundle of potentialityAnd I am learnin' to hear God's voiceAnd I am tryin' to make the right choiceI am a promise to be anything God wants me to be.

I just wish it was more clear what I'm supposed to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

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"There is always plenty to complain about if your life is controlled by your feelings. But there is always much more to thank God for if you life is controlled by your dwelling on His faithfulness, His love and His mercy."~ Elisabeth Elliott ~

Recommended Time Wasters in order of how I check them when I'm procrastinating household duties